Last updated: 8th October 2026.
In this special episode of the Employee Advocacy and Influence Podcast, Katherine Keenan, Dropbox’s Talent Brand Program Manager, shares exactly how she launched a successful program in 30 days.
You’ll learn:
- How to segment your first wave of users by motivation, not just seniority.
- Why a single onboarding session isn’t enough, and what to do instead.
- A simple cadence for bringing new hires into the program from day one.
- The low-effort daily habit that amplifies everyone’s content.
One habit sets Katherine apart.
A small daily effort, but it meaningfully extends the reach of Dropbox’s program.
The First 30 Days
Katherine Keenan is Dropbox’s Talent Brand Program Manager. When Dropbox onboarded an employee advocacy tool for the first time, she picked up plenty of lessons along the way — here are her top tips from the first 30 days.
1. Identifying Employees
Katherine’s first move was to identify the distinct groups who’d benefit from the platform for different reasons, rather than rolling it out to everyone at once. Employee advocacy isn’t one-size-fits-all. The faster you recognize that different employees will use the tool for different reasons, the faster adoption follows.
Power users. She started with the most engaged employees on LinkedIn, offering them early access. This group already understood the value of posting, so the pitch wasn’t about convincing them to start. It was about showing them how the tool would give them consistent, polished content in a more streamlined way.
Sales team. Next came the sales team, timed around a product launch that month. Knowing the team would already be turning to LinkedIn for social selling, Dropbox positioned the platform, with help from the launch’s project managers, as the way the announcement would be promoted, not an optional extra.
Because the sales team values data, the pitch leaned on individual post tracking and a comprehensive analytics report for the whole launch.
People team. The last group was the people team, who constantly need content to show candidates why they should come work there.
Pre-written captions based on Dropbox’s key messaging took the guesswork out of posting, so their content kept working even while they were offline, which is useful since candidates are job-hunting around the clock.
2. Rolling Onboarding Process
A single onboarding session wasn’t enough.
After Dropbox’s first session, several employees asked whether certain company blogs were connected to the platform. Katherine didn’t realize these blogs were being published regularly. Adding them to the RSS feed took no time, and she was glad to catch the gap in a smaller group rather than company-wide.
The takeaway: treat early onboarding sessions as a feedback loop. The questions people ask reveal what to cover next time, and noticing which features get the most enthusiasm shows you what to lead with. The goal is to listen as much as you talk.
3. User Enrolment Plan
Once the initial rollout was done, Katherine needed a plan for consistently bringing on new users, so she built it around new hires.
She secured a 30-minute slot in onboarding to explain employee advocacy and run a live demo.
Having new hires practice their first post during the demo itself reinforces that sharing on LinkedIn is part of Dropbox’s culture from day one.
Everything is new to them in their first week, which makes them more likely to post about the experience.
4. Don’t Be Shy
Finally, Katherine makes a habit of connecting with attendees on LinkedIn right after onboarding sessions.
Seeing her post consistently reminds them they can do the same, leading by example and signaling that advocacy is meant to be authentic rather than a forced promotional exercise.
That’s the full rundown of how Katherine launched Dropbox’s program in its first 30 days. A huge thank you to her for sharing it.
Key takeaways to apply to your own program launch:
- Segment your first users by motivation (power users, a team with an imminent use case, a team that needs ready-made content) rather than treating everyone the same.
- Expect your first onboarding session to surface gaps you hadn’t planned for, so build in time to listen and adjust before your next one!
- Give new hires a live demo and have them post during it, in their first week, while it’s still part of “how things work here”.
- Engage with a handful of your advocates’ posts daily. It only takes a few minutes and extends everyone’s reach.
Want to see how you could launch a successful program like Dropbox?
Wondering how active your team already is, and how this compares with your competitors?
More resources for starting your program:
Jody Leon
VP of Marketing at DSMN8. With over 20 years of experience in marketing and advertising, Jody leads the DSMN8 marketing team, focusing on brand, demand generation, and growth.
